Music: 1932 April in Paris | Blossom Dearie Trio 1955
Video: 1930s Brassaï photos | Paris at night
1930s playlist: t.ly/TxIW
"Walking the city streets at night, Brassaï discovered a previously unseen world and captured it on camera. He shows us every face and every facet, from tough guys and showgirls to prostitutes and pleasure-seekers, from the bustling cafés and dance halls to the stillness of deserted streets and mist-shrouded monuments. Through his eyes, Paris becomes a world of shadows, in which light, the prerequisite for any photograph, is reduced to dimly lit windows, streetlamps in the fog, or reflections on a rain-soaked pavement."
(thamesandhudson.com/brassa-pa...)
* * *
"Blossom Dearie
American jazz singer and pianist known for her distinctive little-girl-lost tones
The Guardian
8 Feb 2009
Blossom Dearie, who has died aged 82, was one of the unique jazz voices of the second half of the 20th century. She was a cult, a musicians' musician, but her fame spread wider through television and radio, and, moving up generations, Kylie Minogue was citing Dearie as a primary influence in 2007. Many people who had only a passing acquaintance with her songs did not realise that the exquisitely shaded piano "accompaniment" was hers. Dearie's piano-playing was as unique as her singing. Teddy Wilson, one of the great style-setters of jazz piano, singled her out as one of his favourites.
Early in the 1950s, at the invitation of the French label Barclay Records, she moved from New York to Paris. There she shared an apartment with the Scots jazz singer Annie Ross, and formed her eight-piece vocal group the Blue Stars, for whom Michel Legrand arranged George Shearing's Lullaby of Birdland in 1954, sung in French. She worked with Ross, both as a singer and pianist, and met the Belgian tenor saxophonist and flute-player Bobby Jaspar, whom she subsequently married. The Blue Stars later turned into the Swingle Sisters.
Dearie remained in Paris for five years. When the impresario Norman Granz, who had met her in France, started Verve Records in 1956, Dearie returned to New York, and settled in Greenwich Village. She began her solo career with Blossom Dearie (1957) and made a half-dozen Verve albums concluding with My Gentleman Friend (1961). She performed at jazz clubs in Manhattan - sometimes working with Miles Davis - and Los Angeles and her television work included NBC's Today show with David Garroway, who was a big fan, and the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. She was regularly supported by a trio of guitar, bass (usually Ray Brown) and drums. A song for a root beer grew into the Blossom Dearie Sings Rootin' Songs (1963) album and in 1964 the notable Capitol LP, May I Come In? featured a full orchestra.
Dearie was known in Britain by the early 1960s, playing Annie's (Ross) Room and then Ronnie Scott's. During her residencies she used to stay with Richard Rodney Bennett in his house in Islington. She made four Fontana albums in London, a city that she loved, the first being Blossom Time at Ronnie Scott's (1966).
Cigarettes lessened her appearances in Soho, for Dearie's tender vocal cords could not stand smoke. When she appeared at the Pizza on the Park in the 1980s and 90s, diners were asked to stop smoking 10 minutes before each of her sets. She would still sometimes lose her voice. And what a precious instrument it was - intimate and breathy, with a fragile silvery quality floated on very little breath support. Her tiny, little-girl-lost tones just tickled the microphone, but they were only part of a subtle range of colours which could evoke the instrumental timbres of a flute or wa-wa muted trumpet.
Dearie's piano-playing was equally special; a flickering keyboard style of great restraint. It has been described as 'muscular', though, that muscularity was more evident when you saw Dearie, because her fingers' precisely placed accents seemed just to prick the placid surface of her personality. It was this imperturbable aspect which set off the wit of Dave Frishberg's songs so effectively. There was Peel Me a Grape, My Attorney Bernie (When Bernie says we sue, we sue/When Bernie says we sign, we sign) and above all, I'm Hip. In these Dearie would wear no more than the hint of a smile.
For seven years, Dearie often performed at Danny's Skylight Room on West 46th Street - Restaurant Row - in Manhattan. And that was where, in 2006, she fulfilled her last engagement."
(www.theguardian.com/music/200...)
22 фев 2021
